The court did ultimately invalidate the ordinance on other technical grounds—specifically, certain types of moratoria passed as “police power” actions in New York have to meet a stringent “dire necessity” standard, which, the lower court held, was not met by the circumstances surrounding the Binghamton moratorium. Tuesday’s ruling, however, affirms the status quo with respect to home rule authority over gas drilling. Namely, that municipalities still have the authority to limit or ban fracking through the use of local zoning power.

It’s worth noting, however, that these local rights are not yet set in stone. Appeals in the Dryden and Middlefield cases may be formalized or “perfected” by industry sometime within the next few weeks, which would mean that an appellate court may hear challenges to those decisions as early as this winter. There’s also always the chance that, whatever the result of the appeals, these cases will find their way into the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. Regardless, because of their solid reasoning and the strong legal support for home rule authority in New York, it is expected that these decisions will be upheld.

As part of NRDC’s longstanding work on these issues, and through its new Community Fracking Defense Project, NRDC will continue to fight on behalf of local rights to protect against the harms of fracking in these and other important home rule cases.

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Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.